Book Review: The Wonder-Working Providences of Sion’s Savior in New England, by Edward Johnson

The Wonder-Working Providences of Sion’s Savior in New England, by Edward Johnson, published as Johnson’s Wonder-Working Providences, edited by J. Franklin Jameson in 1906, reprinted by Alpha Editions, 2020.

The original by Edward Johnson was written contemporaneously from the years 1617-1651, beginning with the circumstances and preparations the Puritans made to emigrate to New England. Johnson did not settle in New England until 1637, but gives account of events the whole period. He describes the towns and churches in New England individually, giving dates and names of the leaders and pastors. The historical narrative covers multiple dimensions. This includes the relationship with the people in England who came and those who stayed behind; interactions with other nearby settlements; interactions with the Native American tribes; settlement of various towns and the establishment of churches and pastors in them; and theological controversies. Part I concludes with a brief mention of their response to the English civil war (which ran from 1642-1651).

Johnson spends several chapters discussing the religious and theological controversy that caused great turmoil in 1636-37, which is not easily summarized. The main issue revolved around the call to holiness being deemed Pharisaical legalism by proponents of free grace, a viewpoint known as antinomianism, and how much tolerance government should have of varying beliefs and practices of those calling themselves Christian. Puritans have a reputation for being self-righteous, holier-than-thou religious zealots. As Johnson attempts to explain, in the context of heresies that resulted in expelling specific peoples, they were trying to protect a traditional and reasonable interpretation and application of the Scriptures. As nearly as I can explain it, this was that Christians are saved by faith in Christ, not by works, but that once saved, they need to act like God’s children. One of the heresies they rejected was the antinomian approach, espoused by Anna Hutchinson and others, which holds that since we are saved by grace, there is no law that applies to us and we can live as we please. This is taking Ephesians 2:8-9 completely out of context, ignoring Ephesians 2:10, Romans 13:10,  Matthew 5:17-19, and Luke 10:25-28. An opposite heresy was put forth in 1650 by William Pynchon, to the effect that Jesus did not save us, and that we earn salvation by keeping the law. This was published in his book The Meritorious Price of our Redemption, the first book burned in Boston. The enforcement of moral standards by civil government is a controversy that persists to this day.

There is a short account of the Puritans efforts to extend their influence to Virginia, which failed. Since Virginians were loyal to the Church of England, nonconformists (i.e.,  Puritans) were forced out of Virginia by 1650. This was linked to the English civil war. Johnson’s penultimate chapter deals with the evangelization of native Americans. Unlike Israel being commanded by God to annihilate the Canaanites, the Puritans saw Jesus’ Great Commission as a command to evangelize.

Johnson’s book requires perseverance. The writing style is sometimes hard to read, as spelling was not Johnson’s strength. Johnson also injects verses of poetry as he (mostly) lauds the accomplishments and people he describes. I would say that he was not a great poet. The notes by J. Franklin Jameson are helpful to clarify meanings and correct factual errors (usually about how many people were in a given community or a specific activity), to clarify the meaning of ambiguous misspelled words, and the names and circumstances that Johnson describes. His notes explaining the theological controversies are helpful but somewhat confusing on core issues. 

The clear message is that the author saw every event and circumstance through the lens of faith. Ultimately, in every situation, Jesus was the ultimate arbiter. Jesus caused His people to live out His life in theirs. And therefore, Jesus is thanked and worshipped.

In God's eyes, we are all autistic

Book Review: A Praying Life, by Paul E. Miller. Connecting with God in a distracting world.

Jesus is Lord over context! 

Paul Miller is both profound and accessible. A natural storyteller, he relates innumerable personal examples of how God has used circumstances of his life and family, especially his autistic daughter Kim, to teach him and form him. The core lesson that he learned and shares with the reader is how to make conversation with God a continuous practice in our daily lives, and to approach Him as Father, talking to Him about everything, all the time. 

When we face situations, the natural response is to deal with them. But through prayer, if we choose prayer as our first response rather than our own ideas, God is able. He can reveal to us His glory, how He sees the situation, and transform it to a growth opportunity, which is why He allowed it in the first place. 

We go through different dimensions of prayer growth. Consistency and perseverance. Truly trusting God for the outcome and overcoming cynicism. Expressing thanks in God’s presence, not as a ritual but from the heart. Recognizing God in all circumstances.  Praying from a heart of desperation, but avoiding despair. Walking the narrow path between not asking and asking selfishly. Overcoming the scariness of God’s kingdom actually coming into our lives on earth, giving up making our world in our image. Seeing God as a good Father, despite the shortcomings of our earthly fathers. Dealing with unanswered prayer. Living in the story that the Father is telling. Recognizing the hidden connections that give meaning to suffering. Listening to God, cultivating the synergy of learning from God’s word and hearing His voice.

The final few chapters deal with using tools, such as journaling, a prayer list, prayer cards, and so forth, to enrich our spiritual life and not become a dead ritual. Personally, this is important because I grew up in a church with a liturgy that was mechanically recited every Sunday. The service was dead so I concluded God did not exist. He had to intervene directly, with power, to convince me of His existence, His nature and character, and His power. The words of the liturgy were Godly and born of the Truth (i.e., scriptural), but rote repetition encouraged deadness.  And thusly this book concludes with how to use tools to bring life and not death.

I have learned many (not all!) of the dimensions of prayer over 49 years of knowing the Lord, but I appreciate the confirmation. Paul Miller’s explanations of how we can and should relate to Jesus, who sees the whole picture and has the Master plan, are readable and accessible. 

God is not an ATM

I remember, in the first church I attended after being saved, a woman I will call Jessica. She was not a member of the church, because she had not surrendered her life to Christ, and she almost never came to services. But she tithed faithfully, sending a check with her sister who attended every week. Why? Jessica had been raised in a Christian home and believed Malachi 3:10; she had found God to be faithful to His word. 

I left when the Air Force reassigned me out of state. Years later, I was back visiting old friends and learned that Jessica had accepted Christ. In retrospect, I realized that God takes His word and His actions seriously. He is not an ATM or an investment advisor. He is the creator and Lord of the universe. Jessica had engaged God in the first role, but He is so much more than we can imagine. His presence must be taken seriously. If we engage Him at any level, He engages us to grow the depth of our relationship. 

The presence of God was manifested in various places in the Old Testament, and also in Jesus the Messiah. But God is also present when we trust His word.  He will honor His word, and watches over it to perform it. (Jeremiah 1:12) It is a fundamental error to confuse the promises with the person making them, but God will clear that up. Jessica opened the door and learned the Truth, that the blessing of knowing Christ far exceeds mere financial rewards. (Revelation 3:20) 

God takes His word seriously, but in the Ten Commandments, He warned us to take His name seriously. Orthodox Jews therefore do not say His name at all, to avoid violating the third commandment, but instead say”the name” (Hashem). They believe that thereby they will avoid inadvertently taking His name in vain. But God’s real intent is that we should invoke His name appropriately. He has given us many names for Himself, such as Jehovah Rapha - the God who heals, Jehovah Jireh - the God who provides, Elohim, Adonai, El Shaddai, and many others. In the Trinity, as Jesus taught us, there are three persons.

• YHWH AB - our Eternal Father, whom we are privileged to call ABBA - daddy.

• Yeshua Hamashiach - Savior and Anointed one

• Ruach HaKodesh - divine breath of the Holy Spirit

He wants us to speak His name to bring life, salvation, healing, and relationship to a lost and dying world. Not frivolously, not to manipulate, but to bring the blessing of His presence. 

Jessica recognized God’s power and character, believing that He would faithfully repay her tithing. He showed her His forgiveness, which she received, because participation in His kingdom can begin with little things like tithing, but He will bless greatly when we respond to His overtures.

Book Review: What if Jesus Had Never Been Born? by D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe

 In considerable depth, the authors present historical evidence that many basic aspects of life in the modern world exist only as a result of Jesus and His followers’ actions.

•      The value we place on human life (that we take as a given in western culture) comes directly from the value that God places on us, so much so that He came in Human form to rescue us from the power and consequences of sin. Jesus did this both through His teachings and His death. It is manifested in the changes over centuries of history in our view of the value of children, women, and the elderly, and the abolition of slavery. We take these for granted, but it was not so before Christ.

•      Compassion and mercy for the poor have roots in the Old Testament, but were not widely practiced in the rest of the world until the spread of Christianity to the gentiles. The history of charity over the past 2,000 years traces the gradual broad acceptance of this as a norm, but it was not so before Christ.

•      Government of, by, and for the people, and civil liberties, all are closely linked to the worldview of the Founding Fathers of the U.S. Their views go back further to the Mayflower Compact, and the faith of the early settlers, but ultimately were all based on the Biblical view of human worth, as described above.

And the book continues with discussion of the roots of what we take for granted in science, economics, sexuality, medicine, morality, and art. The bulk of the text is a detailed review of the development of modern views on these topics.

 The challenge this book addresses is that many believe Christianity is opposed to modern views on these topics. So, there is a chapter devoted to the sins of the church, its failures over the centuries to live up to the standards of Christ. This includes the Crusades, anti-Semitism, religious wars, and the Inquisition, to name a few. The authors draw a distinction between Christianity and Christendom, with the latter (the visible manifestation of those naming Christ) sometimes using the former as a pretext for sins inconsistent with submission to Christ. The sins of prominent modern evangelists and preachers demonstrate that we are a fallen people, prone to violating the third commandment (Exodus 20:7), using God’s name to justify personal agendas.

 For those who prefer to live without the constraints of Christian morality, rejecting Jesus and His teachings, the authors point out modern examples of a few who have done so. With Nietzsche at the philosophical root, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao vie for the title of avowed atheists who have brutally murdered the most people. The numbers killed in the Crusades and the Inquisition are a small fraction of these 20th century slaughters.

 And what of the future? Cotton Mather (17th century Puritan) is quoted: “Religion begat prosperity, but the daughter hath consumed the mother.” The history of ancient Israel would likely be repeated in modern times, and may be, but for two factors. The Holy Spirit empowers believers to live in the world but not of the world, if they are willing. And … Jesus has plans to bring His story to a climax. We do not know the day or the hour, only the outline of what He will do, because of His love for us. Regardless, we can see the undeniable fruit of all that He has given us in the modern world, even more than was apparent two thousand years ago. How would our view of life change if we recognize Jesus in every one of these aspects of life?

Book Review: Sermon on the Mount, by R. T. Kendall

R. T. Kendall provides a verse-by-verse commentary on one of the seminal teachings by Jesus.(Matthew 5-7) He challenges us to actually live the way Jesus told us to. One example: he recapitulates the essence of his earlier book on total forgiveness in the passage where Jesus commanded it. Jesus followed teaching of the Lord’s Prayer with the warning that if we do not forgive those who have wronged or hurt us, we will not be forgiven. (Matthew 6:14-15) Kendall takes the position that this does not mean loss of salvation for the believer, but a life wracked by bitterness and its fruit. If we do not let them totally off the hook and sincerely bless them, we will not, cannot receive God’s blessing in this life.  Praying for God to bless that reckless driver who tailgates and cuts in and out of traffic, endangering everyone nearby, is just the tip of the iceberg. What about those who wounded us as children, or wounded our children, or stole our money, or ruined our reputation? Jesus offered no exceptions. 

Other passages are equally challenging. In Matthew 7:1-5, Jesus warns against judging others with a similar consequence - that in this life we will be judged by the same standard. Jesus uses the hyperbole of specks of dust contrasted with beams of wood in our eyes to emphasize just how distorted and self-centered our judgment is. But He concludes this section with instructions on how to see clearly enough to help a brother remove a speck. How do we get there, and how do we know we have reached a point where we are allowed to help others with motes in their eyes? You have to read for yourself to understand the nuances of when our judging others leads to us being judged, and when we are able to help another.

Treasures on earth and in heaven? (Matthew 6:19-21) Jesus did not say one word about tithing. He focused on our heart’s ultimate values. It is so easy to give money. What really matters to us? Do we truly believe that we can store up treasure for heaven by what we do now? Do we act on these beliefs? Is our heart focused on heavenly outcomes? Do our deeds line up with our profession? Is tithing a way to draw a line on how much of our life we let God claim, and implicitly get earthly treasure for ourselves?

False prophets (Matthew 7:15-20): Jesus gives a sure-fire test to identify them - their fruit. Social media have introduced a megaphone for literally anyone with a computer to claim God told them something. But even before Facebook and Twitter existed, churches and lives were ravaged by some claiming a gift of prophecy, a word from the Lord, when they were either entirely self-serving, or deceived by or in league with the devil. But Kendall does not disparage all prophecy on this account. Despite abuses, he encourages us to apply Christ’s litmus test - examining their fruit - to sift out the false prophets. This does not mean that we become a fruit inspector to pass judgment on every person we talk to. (See above discussion on Matthew 7:1-5). But if someone claims to have a word from the Lord, the shoe is on the other foot. 

It took me a year to read through the 91 chapters. But for anyone taking Jesus’ teachings seriously, this is an illuminating tome. Not hard to read, but hard to put into practice. One of Kendall’s strengths is explaining subtle distinctions that Jesus made in example situations that we can relate to. What will the world look like after we obey Jesus? Read this and weep over the way we currently live. Then apply it.

Book Review: The Reason For God, by Timothy Keller

Tim Keller did not stop with answering fundamental objections to Christianity and providing solid explanations of basic Christian beliefs and practices. In the end, he wove a narrative of the eternal dance of love and gives some real examples of changed hearts and what a decision for Christ looks like in practice. He had first-hand experience in New York City dealing with people of great intelligence dealing with honest questions and doubts, and with people whose lives were marred by tragedy, and doubted God’s goodness or His power.

Part I has seven chapters dealing with objections: Christianity’s claim of exclusivity; the problem of pain; legalism and genuine righteousness; wrongs committed in the name of Jesus; reconciling a God of love with a God of justice; apparent conflict between faith and science; and the challenge of Bible interpretation. Part 2 has seven chapters offering positive reasons to believe in Christ, and to trust Him, and to make a decision to identify with Him. 

The unusual part of this theological book on apologetics is the description of the divine dance (chapter 14). The Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - eternally live to love, glorify, and and give to and bless each other. Loving relationships are thus at the very heart of reality. “God did not create us to get the cosmic, infinite joy of mutual love and glorification, but to share it.” But we lost the dance, beginning with Adam and Eve. Jesus died on the cross to return us to that loving relationship with His unlimited love. What does it mean to rejoin God’s dance of love, to become God-centered rather than self-centered? We share the joy He has in serving others as we glorify Him by doing so, and therein  worship Him. We join with creation in singing the praise of His glory. We encourage others to join us in His dance. 

How many will be persuaded? Only God knows that, but every reader will end reading this book with far fewer excuses to reject Christ. In every sense, this tests our hearts - whether we will come to Him when our questions are answered, or reject Him on the fundamental personal level of not wanting to submit, of wanting our own way rather than His. 

Timothy Keller went to his eternal reward on May 19, 2023.

Two dimensional time and God's Glory

According to basic physics, time is a linear dimension whose passage is directed by the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy always increases. Metric time is defined by standards such as  the time that elapses during 9,192,631,770 cycles of the radiation produced by the transition between two levels of the cesium-133 atom. The special and general theories of relativity allow for time dilation under the influence of extreme velocity or exceptionally strong gravitation. In all of these cases, time is still a single dimension of existence. Modern physics (string theory) attempts to use 10 or 11 dimensions to describe modern physics’ understanding of the interaction of space-time with various dimensions, but the additional dimensions are ‘compact’, meaning their extent is subfemtoscopic. But the phenomena of all of these modern physics theories describe are only accessible by extremely sophisticated scientific instruments, well outside the experience of daily life.

It is not uncommon for us to reference both ideas and experiences which are tangible in which time does not flow uniformly. “Time stood still” refers to experiences that are so focused and intense that the passage of outside events and time seem to be put on pause, yet seem to elapse for the individual uttering these words. (see, for example, Joshua 10:13) Time travel is the stuff of science fiction, but Bible prophecy indicates that select individuals were enabled to see events of the future. In near death experiences, some will say that their life flashed before their eyes. We might say that all of these experiences are mental, or perhaps spiritual, but my point is that tying time to a physical phenomenon such as the frequency of radiation from an atom may not be the only means to perceive time. 

The concept here is that from a human perspective of  body, soul, and spirit, space an time may have one (or more) additional dimension(s). Not just compact dimensions, but unlimited in extent. When we read in the Bible of eternity, a new heaven and a new earth, how can this be reconciled with the “heat death of the universe”? Perhaps when time seems to stand still, we are traveling (briefly) in that other time dimension, which is orthogonal to the one we normally live in. Where is heaven anyway? Above us in physical space, we have mapped out the atmosphere and the nearer parts of outer space to varying degrees -  heaven has not been found in this solar system. Perhaps it is on some distant planet circling another star that astronomers are slowly detecting?

Jesus indicated that heaven is at hand. This suggests to me that it is in a dimension or dimensions that are perpendicular (both in space and time) to ours. Not far away in those dimensions, but inaccessible in our current state most of the time. Perhaps our physical bodies are tied to the dimensions of space and time we experience, and when they die our soul and spirit are freed to travel in those additional dimensions, where spiritual realities are manifest. 

Turning now to a seemingly unrelated topic, what is glory? We have human understanding of it being fame and good report of heroic actions for good causes. But there are Biblical descriptions of God’s glory that indicate it is visible, transcendent, and terrifying. (Exodus 33:18-23, 40:35, Numbers 16:42-49, 1 Kings 8:10-11, 2 Chronicles  5:15, Isaiah 6:1-5) What is God’s glory? I believe it is the result of the combination of His eternal love and perfect holiness, manifested in the eternal dimensions, but only occasionally seen on earth. Jesus’ hidden qualities were thus manifested on the Mount of Transfiguration. (Luke 9:29-36) When Ezekiel and John saw the throne of God in heaven, this glory was visible. (Ezekiel 1:26-28,  Revelation 1:13-17)

How do love and holiness become visible (apart from the actions they produce)? This is pure speculation on my part, but perhaps they are so intrinsically tied to the dimensions of eternity that they yield emanations, in a vague way similar to the way gravity warps space and time as described by the general theory of relativity. Maybe it is like Cherenkov radiation manifesting light as bright as the sun when the nature and character of the Son of God are unveiled in our space-time continuum. 

The final challenge is this. Jesus invites us to become like Him, to receive His nature and character of agape love and unblemished holiness. [Achieving this is a separate topic.] But perhaps  this means when we arrive at that state of eternal identification with Him, we will share His glory, just as Moses and Elijah did when Jesus spoke with them just before His passion. (Luke 9:31) This goes beyond merely receiving God’s approval, as C. S. Lewis described in his essay on the Weight of Glory. God’s glory goes beyond His approval, to Him causing us to actually receive and live out His nature and character. Let us humbly engage on responding to this challenge.